AMANO Kazumi (1927-2001)

Amano Kazumi (尼野和三) was born in Takaoka City, Tôyama Prefecture. He graduated from the Takaoka High School of Industrial Art in 1945, specializing in furniture design. In 1950, Amano studied briefly under Munakata Shikô. By 1953, he was exhibiting at the Nihon Hanga Kyôkai (Japan Print Association), and then moved to Tokyo in 1955.

In 1968, Amano relocated to the United States, first working as a teacher at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois and Marycrest College, Davenport, Iowa. In 1971, he moved his family to New York City, where he worked for 30 years.

Amano's early work showed Munakata's influence, but his later prints were very different, characterized by elegant, precision-cut abstractions featuring forms (sometimes embossed) balanced against empty space. His compositions are filled with shapes hinting at industrial or furniture design. Amano spoke in abstractions about his art, and is reported to have said that he was interested in "dynamic opposition and disorder," or the "constant metamorphosis" from "natural evolution."

Amano won prizes at international print biennales in Lugano (1964), Tokyo (1966), and Krakow (1968). His works are represented in the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; the Toyama Modern Art Museum, Japan; the Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Cincinnati Art Museum; the New York Public Library; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Miami Museum; the Seattle Art Museum; the Stockholm National Museum; the Elvehjem Museum of Art, Madison, WI; and the Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco.